So... big news for Battlegrounds in the next patch! I must admit that I'm very intrigued by the new Quest system - it seems like a pretty complex addition to the mode which could leave balance out of whack for a little bit, but I'm confident they can manage it. Buddies and Darkmoon Prizes were both similarly large shifts in how the mode functioned, after all, and while the balance was certainly very different during each of those periods of the game, I do think overall that it was still good.

Conversation this time is beating a dead horse - just get it over with already!

That's A Wrap!

Congratulations to the winner of the latest Competition, Sothis with their Sarcophari!

Look forward to their theme ideas for next week!

Technical Support

Another Mini-Set takes the Spotlight this week - these seem to be gaining in popularity nowadays, and I completely understand why. It's a lot of fun to add to an old expansion, and Wailor's ""Boom Labs I.T. Division" for The Boomsday Project is no exception!

The theming of this one is really clever. Wailor noted that they've created a bunch of computer-related cards over the years, drawing inspiration from their own life. While Hearthstone has gone across a wide variety of themes in its expansions, computer science and cyberpunk leanings haven't really cropped up that much before, and building a whole set around the premise might be difficult.

It's a good thing we've got an inroad in The Boomsday Project! The heightened focus on mechanics and experimentation takes very little moulding before it becomes straight up science fiction, and Wailor has danced a perfect line between straight translations of ideas like Virtual Reality Project and more fantasy-leaning references like Trojansteed.

It's an important aspect of design to take into consideration, one that other card games have grappled with over the years. Magic, for example, received a bit of pushback from some of the playerbase over more on-the-nose references to source material than they felt was appropriate for the setting - cards like Toralf, God of Fury were viewed as too direct a reference when previous sets had taken more care to give things their own spin. It was even highlighted as something they needed to improve on by Mark Rosewater in his yearly review of the state of the game.

Custom card sets do give you the freedom to go completely out there in your inspirations - I've made plenty a Pokemon-based Hearthstone card in my time - but if you're looking for authenticity then it's a good idea to think about how you can adapt a concept to feel more like Hearthstone. Trojansteed, again, is a prefect example of doing this correctly.

Make sure you click the link above to see the full interview and get a link to the full set!

Dead Famous

Death Knights came to Hearthstone back in Frozen Throne - but what is dead may never die! Click the banner to rise again!